


Left Child

by authoresswithoutwords



Series: Left [8]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Child Abuse, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-20
Updated: 2020-04-20
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:22:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23750767
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/authoresswithoutwords/pseuds/authoresswithoutwords
Summary: The day that Petunia Dursley, perfectly normal housewife, wakes to find a freak on her doorstep.//This story can be understood without having read the other parts of this series.//
Relationships: Petunia Evans Dursley/Vernon Dursley
Series: Left [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1658788
Comments: 2
Kudos: 152





	Left Child

**Author's Note:**

> I hope this short story gives a clearer insight in how I see the Dursley family!

Petunia Dursley is the most normal woman one can imagine.

She is married and has a little son she stays at home to take care of. Her husband is a vaguely successful employee at a mediocre company in the nearest city. She likes gardening and baking, but dislikes doing the dishes. She’d rather vacuum-clean the house than sweep the floors with a broom. While she would not call them close friends, she is acquainted with all the neighbours. She meets up with the women who live in the street once a week to gossip, swap recipes and complain about their husbands and children. She might spoil her Dudley a bit, but which mother isn’t soft on her child?

It all changes one day.

One beautiful November morning, Petunia wakes up a few minutes before the alarm clock. She spends the time cuddling up to Vernon and relaxing. Reluctantly, she gets up when the alarm reminds her to. She considers dressing, but is still lazy enough that she just puts on her dressing gown. Yawning, she makes her way down the hallway, throwing a glance into Dudley’s room.

Closing the door softly, Petunia moves on. She forgot to put on her slippers, as the first step off the carpet onto the cold wooden floor tells her. She flees back upstairs, putting on the soft cotton slippers as well as a pair of thick socks. Vernon is already changing into his suit, struggling with the tiny buttons on his shirt. When he sees her, he smiles and walks closer to kiss her good morning.

“How’s Dudders?”

She nods in reply. “Still sleeping, but not for much longer, I reckon. These days, he always gets up at around seven.”

“Good! It’s important for boys to have a healthy routine!” He goes back to his buttons, softly cursing at them.

Petunia smiles and kisses Vernon one last time. “I’ve still got to make breakfast.”

Vernon perks up. “Oh, can you make me an extra-strong coffee? I didn’t sleep well last night.” At her concerned question, he elaborates, “I don’t know. I just feel like I didn’t sleep at all. I’m still kind of exhausted. Maybe I slept with half an eye open. I’m still not used to this quiet all night through!”

Laughing softly, Petunia admonishes, “Don’t jinx it!”

“Touch wood,” Vernon agrees and knocks against the door. Both of them start giggling at the ridiculousness of that old superstition.

Petunia, now armed with warm socks, dares to make her way to the cold kitchen again. She turns on the radio, humming along to a song she’s vaguely familiar with as she puts a pan on the cooktop. Vernon, she knows, will take another ten minutes until he comes down, hungry and ready for work. During breakfast, he likes to read the newspaper so that he has something to talk about with his colleagues.

A few minutes later, Petunia nods to herself. Plates, forks and knives on the table, eggs and bacon almost done, toast in the toaster, coffee flowing into the cup. All that’s missing is the newspaper.

She decides to brace the crisp November air.

She opens the door.

She finds the newspaper.

…And a baby.

“What should we do, Vernon?”, she asks, panicked and nervous and so, so afraid.

Her sister, her little sister, the one who can do what Petunia never will be able to, the one who ran off with a man without a word to her family, the baby of the family, the one Petunia envied and hated and loved _so much_ … dead. Gone. Killed. _Murdered._

And her son, a boy Petunia didn’t even know about, on her doorstep, in the middle of autumn, in this cold weather with only a flimsy blanket to protect him from the frost. The son who will be able to do what Petunia can’t and never will. The product of her sister and… that man. The amalgamation of everything Petunia wanted and can’t have and never will have. Magic and her sister’s love and knowledge about things Petunia can’t even imagine.

The one who will protect her and Vernon and Dudley, small, innocent, helpless Dudders, from a danger Petunia didn’t even know existed just by being in this house.

Vernon is angry, she can tell. Enraged at this freakishness. “A baby on the doorstep!” he huffs. “This isn’t an orphanage! Don’t the freaks have some system in place that doesn’t force bastards onto unsuspecting, normal people? Can’t they keep their freak children to themselves?”

Petunia wants to agree, but… “It says here that he will offer us some sort of protection,” she says, pointing at the odd paper that is stuck to the blanket. “We should keep him.” When it looks like Vernon wants to rage some more, Petunia stops him with two simple words. “For Dudley.”

Vernon looks at her as if she revealed an entirely new world for him. “Yes…,” he says, stumbling to sit down heavily on the couch. “Yes, exactly. For Dudley.”

This will be their motto for the next decade. _For Dudley._

Breakfast is spent in silence. Neither of the two has much of an appetite, and the eggs are almost burnt, but they shoulder on regardless. Vernon presses a quick kiss to Petunia’s cheek as he leaves for work, leaving her all alone with her precious Dudley and… that _thing_.

Reluctantly, Petunia takes the boy into her arms again. Harry, they named him. A terribly normal name for a boy so terribly freakish. But she hopes. Maybe this boy will be one of those… What did Lily call them? Those defect freaks, those who are almost normal again, those who don’t have… the m-word. But the name doesn’t matter.

Yes, maybe, just maybe, the boy will be normal. A good, normal little boy, better than the roots he came from.

With a lighter heart, Petunia lifts the boy to look at him more closely.

Not much of Lily to see in his face. Of course, it is still pudgy with baby fat, but those lips are much too thin to be Lily’s. The shape of his eyes, nose, chin, ears is off, too. The tufts of hair are a deep black, not Lily’s freakishly red strands. At least something to be thankful for. Across his forehead, there is a scar, still an angry red. It looks kind of like a lightning bolt. She’ll have him grow out his hair, Petunia decides, to hide that atrocity. Better an unruly hairstyle than… _that_.

Then, the boy blearily opens his eyes and it’s like Lily is looking at her. No, there is no chance of denying that this infant is Lily’s. Who else would have such freakishly bright green eyes?

Pink lips open in a silent yawn, showing off a few pearly white teeth.

Carefully, Petunia takes further stock of the new addition to her household.

The clothes have to go, immediately. What sort of creatures are these even supposed to be?

Her gaze is caught by a bracelet. And really? A boy wearing jewellery? That’s something only freaks do. No proper boy will be caught wearing such a thing in her house!

Petunia fights with the buckle for a moment. Just as she almost despairs, thinking that this bracelet is the work of the Devil and his freaks, it opens. Petunia’s attention is so caught by the sight of _letters_ that the bracelet falls to the floor and she misses as it turns invisible and disappears, only to be deposited safely in a vault in a bank a world away.

Why… why does this freak child have words written on him? What sort of atrocity is this? Tattooing a baby! But those words… Don’t they look too natural to be a tattoo?

Was the freak… born with them?

Only barely can Petunia stop herself from dropping the… thing. She’ll put… _it_ somewhere she won’t have to see it all the time. Her plan had been to let it stay in Dudley’s room, but now… She can’t let this abnormal thing be anywhere close to her precious son. But where…? The cupboard! It’s perfect! She won’t have to hear it when she is upstairs, and when she is downstairs, she can just turn up the telly or the radio.

Perfect.

Happy with her solution, Petunia puts the baby into the small, dark, dusty room that would be his home for many years to come, and invests in some long-sleeved tops for it.

Nothing freakish can be seen.

Petunia nods to herself.

Yes, this is how it ought to be.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed this story, and thank you very much for reading!


End file.
